


days like these

by distira



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:25:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distira/pseuds/distira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the early morning, waking up to fast flamenco guitar, Sergio thinks for a moment he is back in Sevilla, listening to the old man who used to play guitar on the corner of his street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	days like these

In the early morning, waking up to fast flamenco guitar, Sergio thinks for a moment he is back in Sevilla, listening to the old man who used to play guitar on the corner of his street. He squeezes his eyes shut and listens hard for a moment, and his ears pick up on the dull vibrating sounds. Then he wonders why he bought a cell phone in the first place.

“Mgh,” he grunts.

“Always so graceful, Sergio,” Jesus Navas says, and Sergio can feel the smirk in his voice.

“You know it,” he mumbles back, sitting up and kicking the blankets off. Judging by the amount of sun streaming in his bedroom window, it isn’t that early. “What’s up?” Sergio knows Jesus. Jesus wouldn’t call him any time before noon without a good reason.

“I’m in your city,” Jesus replies.

“That’s nice,” Sergio says, and hangs up. He goes back to sleep for a few hours, and when he wakes up again, he has a text message from Jesus. _you fucker_ , it says. Sergio laughs to himself, gets up, and hauls himself into the shower. Then it dawns on him that he has the weekend off, for the first time in a long time. He goes back into his room and calls Jesus.

\--

Sergio grabs a light jacket and hangs around downstairs while he waits for Jesus. Sure enough, he can barely hear his friend knocking over the sound of the Premier League derby he’s half watching. Jesus’s knock sounds timid and Sergio feels abruptly bad for hanging up on him earlier.

“Hey, you find your way here alright?” he asks, stepping lightly outside and tugging the door shut behind him. Jesus nods, and they start walking.

They don’t go anywhere in particular, because Sergio doesn’t feel like braving the Madrid traffic, and he knows Jesus will be more comfortable somewhere quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, Sergio thinks he spots a photographer, but he shrugs it off and says nothing to Jesus. They end up at a small, outdoor café a few blocks away from Sergio’s house, and it’s nice to sit outside in the early afternoon sun and drink what he wants without feeling guilty about it or feeling like he might throw it up at practice later.

“So what brings you out here?” He asks.

Jesus shrugs, but Sergio makes sure they maintain eye contact. He knows Jesus. “I wanted to try being away from home,” Jesus replies. His voice is quiet but sure, so Sergio nods. “I’m staying with Marco, he’s here for the summer? Just for a few weeks. I know it’s not a huge leap or anything, but it’s a good first step, I think.”

“It’s great!” Sergio enthuses, waving his hands around a little. “Before you know it, you’ll be on national team duty with nothing to worry about!”

\--

When Sergio met Jesus, it wasn’t a lightning bolt moment. It was a quieter moment, just the two of them, sitting in the locker room lacing up their boots. It was Sergio closing the distance between them to drape an arm over Jesus’s shoulders. It was Sergio humming flamenco music as they walked into the tunnel because he knew it would make Jesus feel better. It became a lasting friendship, but it started with a few bars of flamenco and a flash of Sergio’s smile.

Sergio is, and has always been, good at knowing people.

\--

Sergio gets a text later that day, home and after he’s sent Jesus back to Marco’s for dinner. It says _busy tonight?_ and it’s from Fernando. He stares contemplatively at the phone for a while before closing it. He isn’t sure exactly what he wants to say to Fernando, is the thing. He likes Fernando, likes being friends with him. He also likes having a little time to himself, and right after international duty isn’t exactly the time he wants to see someone else from the national team.

If he didn’t have a cell phone, he wouldn’t have to worry about blowing people off, Sergio realizes as he pockets the phone and starts flipping through take away menus. His options are rather limited and his stomach is growling, hungry for his mother’s cooking.

He puts the menu away and decides to make paella, just for the hell of it.

Fernando emails him later, a brief message that says _way to blow me off for mr sevilla_. There’s a picture attached of Sergio at the café with Jesus. Sergio groans and closes his laptop.

\--

“You know, it’s not like there aren’t a million photos of you going out to lunch with a million different people,” Sergio tells Fernando the minute the older boy answers his phone. Sergio much prefers to call than be called.

“Your point being?” Fernando’s voice is scratchy and rough from sleep, and Sergio only knows that because he just spent a month living in the same room as the striker.

“Oh, I’m sorry Sleeping Beauty, did I wake you up?” Sergio coos, laughing to himself. It’s past nine, if only by a few minutes, and therefore he is within the rules of etiquette to be calling. “Oh wait, Sleeping Beauty has dark hair. Who’s the blond one? Cinderella?”

“Fucker,” Fernando mumbles. “Is Jesus there?”

“No, why would he be?” Sergio asks. Fernando grunts something that may or may not be an intelligible language. “Nevermind. He’s not here.”

“Come over,” Fernando says, and it’s a statement, not a question.

\--

Fernando’s house is kind of boring. It’s full of beige furniture and herbal tea and throw pillows and two different coffee makers. Sergio has never known why Fernando needs two coffee makers. He doesn’t even have a DVD collection, because Fernando only watches movies on the channel, Sergio forgets which one, that always shows the old black and white films. Sergio himself has a rather large DVD collection, and not all of them are game tape. Most of them, in fact, are not, and they are alphabetized by genre and director because of that one weekend when he and Rene got really bored, right after he moved to Madrid.

But Fernando does have a TV, and beer, which Sergio suspects he buys at least every two days because there is never more than a six-pack in the fridge, probably because Fernando’s mother is known to make surprise visits and Fernando is nothing if not an upstanding young citizen.

They settle down on the floor in front of the TV and channel surf until Fernando finds Arsenic and Old Lace. Sergio likes old movies, he does, but he prefers things in color. “Let’s play a drinking game,” he suggests, and Fernando nods. “Every time Teddy charges up the stairs,” Sergio says, and by about halfway through the film, he’s pleasantly sleepy and his muscles are nice and heavy. He glances over to check on Fernando and grins to himself to see the striker sleeping, his head lolling onto one shoulder and his hair sticking up in tufts. Sergio gets up, puts a pillow behind Fernando’s head, and calls a cab.

\--

Sometimes, Sergio watches Atletico games. He tells Iker it’s to size up the competition, get a feel for how the rest of La Liga plays every week, but they both know that’s bullshit. What Sergio doesn’t know is exactly _why_ he watches Atletico games just to see Fernando. He likes watching Fernando score, and that doesn’t make sense.

“Hey, did you watch?” Fernando’s voice is loud and insistent and childlike, so Sergio holds the phone about a foot away from his ear. He can still hear very clearly. He winces.

“Yes, I watched,” he sighs. He tells himself it isn’t weird that he watched Atletico’s preseason exhibition match in the States. It’s not like he had anything better to do on a Friday afternoon in the middle of July.

“My goal, did you see my goal?”

“Well, it was a close call, I almost fell asleep before it. But you made it in time, so I fell asleep right after, don’t worry your pretty little head,” Sergio drawls, rolling his eyes. “Yes I saw your goal, fucker.”

“Mmm,” Fernando hums, and then Sergio realizes, oh.

“How much drinking did you do to celebrate?”

Fernando’s giggle would have been enough of an answer, but the striker replies anyway. “Enough to take a cab back.”

“Go drink some water and go to bed,” Sergio groans. Drunk Fernando usually means handsy Fernando, but over the phone it just leads to mumbled, half conversations. “And then call me tomorrow afternoon. After. Noon.”

“Wait,” Fernando says, so Sergio stills his thumb, hovering over the end call button. “Can you just- just stay for a minute, please, I just need-“

His voice is so small and childish and pleading that Sergio sighs and tucks the phone under his ear. “Hold on, Fer, what are you doing?”

“Showering,” Fernando calls out, and Sergio can hear the spray of the water. “Don’t worry, you’re on speaker phone. Not in the shower with me. Don’t worry.”

That’s when it hits Sergio that he wants to be in the shower with Fernando. He wants to see the beads of water clinging to Fernando’s eyelashes, tracing patters down his freckles, sluicing down his back, gathering in the dips and curves of his legs and thighs. Trailing down hard lines of muscle to his cock.

Sergio hangs up.

Then he wonders why he’s just realized this now, when he had a whole month of listening to Fernando shower in their hotel room to picture him naked and wet.

He puts his phone on silent and goes to bed, ignoring his half-hard cock in favor of closing his blackout curtains and trying very, very hard to go to sleep.

\--

“How’s it been?”

Sergio is at Marco’s apartment, downtown, and Jesus is curled up on the couch with a mug of coffee. There’s a replay of the El Clasico from two years ago on, the year before Sergio transferred. He remembers watching this match with Jesus when it happened, watching Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo score and not realizing that in a year, he would share their locker room.

“Good,” Jesus replies. “It’s good. It’s hard sometimes, but you know. Having you and Marco here makes it better.”

Sergio’s phone buzzes, and he glances at the screen. _whatcha doing_ shows up on the screen underneath Fernando’s name. He taps out his reply ( _hanging with jesus, why_ ) before returning his attention to the TV. Spending time with Jesus is easy, like spending time with Rene or Mirian. And with Marco out for the weekend, Sergio knows that if he leaves now, Jesus will have two empty days to fill, and will probably end up going home, which would spoil the whole plan, so. Not an option.

Later, when he’s driving home and it’s late enough that the traffic has subsided, he gets another question from Fernando. _u 2 are close?_ the text reads, and Sergio wonders why Fernando can’t be bothered to just call him, because everything would be less cryptic that way. _yep_ , he texts back, and turns his phone off. He really should just throw it out the window.

\--

Sergio shows the texts to Jesus, who laughs at him and says “You think I’m the sheltered one,” before kicking Sergio out of Marco’s apartment because “Sergio, you’ve gotta have other friends, you aren’t that socially retarded.” Sergio’s only kind of offended, because it’s Jesus, who’s basically a second brother to him. Rene would’ve been meaner, anyway.

Jesus texts him later anyway, but it’s not what Sergio expects. _call him_ , it says.

 _call who? what am i, a mind reader?_ Sergio texts back. Jesus takes a minute to respond and Sergio wonders why he doesn’t just start calling people when they text him. Obviously they are near their phones.

 _fernando you idiot he thinks we’re dating_.

Sergio knows Jesus. Jesus knows Sergio. They are not, nor have they ever been dating, and it feels vaguely like incest for Sergio to even think about dating Jesus. So he stares at the text for a moment and then dials Fernando’s number.

“Hey, just so you know, I’m not dating Jesus,” he says quickly, not giving Fernando a chance to greet him.

“Um,” Fernando says. “Thanks for the update on your lack of love life?”

Sergio laughs, and Fernando joins in.

\--

“Let’s go out,” Marco says the next time Sergio’s over visiting Jesus.

So they do. Marco and Sergio and Jesus, who spends some time in the car texting, but won’t show Sergio, and a few of Marco’s friends, all pile into a town car and head to one of Sergio’s favorite clubs. They do shots, and Sergio tries to get Jesus to dance with him, and he’s in the middle of clapping out an erratic beat that doesn’t line up at all with the music pounding out of the speakers when Fernando joins them.

“Thought you were in the States?” Sergio says, not drunk enough to be slurring but just drunk enough to lean into Fernando’s personal space.

“I just got back,” Fernando grins, and Marco orders another round of shots and that is that.

Sergio doesn’t remember how he ended up sitting half on Fernando’s lap, with Fernando’s hands resting light and warm on his hips, or his shoulder pressed into Sergio’s back, but he certainly sees the look Jesus sneaks between them, and he and his friend have a brief eyebrow argument that Jesus wins easily when he tips his head towards Fernando. Sergio huffs.

He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about sitting on the lap of his good friend, especially not after he’s recently started to fantasize about said good friend in the shower, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t supposed to be quite as _comfortable_ as it actually is. He slides off of Fernando and straightens up. “Bathroom,” he mumbles, and hurries out.

It’s quiet in the men’s room, empty and a jarring shock from the loud of the club, and Sergio splashes cold water on his face and stares at his reflection. Water drips down the straight line of his nose, the curves of his cheekbones. It sobers him up a little bit, but aside from that, does nothing- Sergio knows that this isn’t normal, it hasn’t been normal since the second week of June, when he started liking spending every waking minute with Fernando. And at the rate things are going, they never will be normal again. He turns off the faucet and listens to the silence for a minute.

The door opens behind him as Sergio is turning towards the paper towels, and Fernando practically falls through it. There are two pink spots, high on his cheeks, but his eyes are friendly and warm and his smile is mostly sober. Fernando moves towards Sergio, leans against the sink in between him and the paper towels, so Sergio stands with his hands awkwardly in front of him, dripping water, _plink, plink_ , onto the floor.

“Hey,” Fernando says. His voice is quiet but Sergio knows that face, that’s the face he sees wearing the Atletico armband, the face he sees when Fernando puts on the Spain number nine and stands in the tunnel before a match, silent and determined and deadly.

“Hey,” Sergio replies, shaking his hands a little drier. He is not that determined, he knows. He probably looks like a drowned puppy at this point. His mouth tastes like the shots he’d done, and he wants to go to sleep.

“Everything okay?” Fernando asks. Sergio watches the way his eyebrows knit together in concern, and hates the rush of warmth that floods through his body.

“Fine,” Sergio lies. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve got water on your face,” Fernando points out, reaching up to trace a line from Sergio’s temple to his jawbone. Sergio grits his teeth together and the tendons of his neck stand out in sharp relief. Fernando ignores him and slips his hand further down, to grip at the collar of Sergio’s soft t-shirt. “And I know you’re lying.”

“About what?”

“Just in general.” Fernando’s face is very close to Sergio’s now, and he can smell the alcohol on the striker’s breath as Fernando exhales in puffs across his face. Sergio doesn’t flinch away. Fernando presses his nose to Sergio’s cheek, and Sergio startles a little when he feels Fernando’s tongue slide out, scraping over the stubble on his jaw. “You’re a terrible liar.” His other hand is dancing lightly along the waistband of Sergio’s pants, pushing his shirt up slightly to get at skin, Fernando’s fingers slipping just under the fabric, just enough to push at Sergio’s jeans. “You always have been, as long as I’ve known you.” His fingers move to the front of Sergio’s jeans, and he starts to undo the button, slowly, like they have all the time in the world, like this isn’t a drunken tryst in the men’s room. Sergio is panting, he can hear his harsh breaths echoing all around the room, and his pupils are blown wide. He’s hard, straining against his jeans, and it’s just from Fernando’s teasing little touches, the feeling of his words pressed into Sergio’s skin.

“You look to the side, when you lie,” Fernando continues, chuckling a little. “And your pulse gets faster.” He punctuates the last by licking over Sergio’s pulse point, scraping teeth chasing his tongue. “So you should stop lying,” Fernando continues, pressing his nose into the hollow of Sergio’s throat, breathing him in. “Because I don’t like it when you lie.”

He pulls back for a second, meets Sergio’s eyes, and then slithers down Sergio’s body until he’s on his knees, eyes still fixed on Sergio’s. “Why not?” Sergio asks, and he can’t break eye contact, Fernando is too insistent, and he knows this is bad, nothing good will come of this, but he can’t stop. He reaches behind himself to grip the sink, trying to steady himself out.

“Because I like it when you look at me,” Fernando explains, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and maybe it is. Sergio has a minute to think about it before Fernando’s hands are on his hips, pushing his jeans and boxers down, and Sergio’s cock springs free, grateful to be free of the constraint of Sergio’s jeans.

“Oh,” Sergio breathes, and Fernando grins. His tongue pokes out, licks experimentally at Sergio’s cock, and it’s obscene, so much so that Sergio can’t look away.

“I like when your pulse gets faster when you look at me,” Fernando says, still staring at Sergio, who swallows hard. “I like knowing it’s because of me.”

And Sergio can’t help himself from reaching down, dragging Fernando up his body to kiss him, full of teeth and too much intention, and it’s not one of the better kisses he’s had, but it doesn’t matter. Fernando’s hands slip around the back of his neck, and Fernando’s hips press against Sergio’s, pushing him back against the sinks, and one hand slips down Sergio’s back to palm his ass. “Like that,” Fernando breathes, dropping his head to nip at Sergio’s pulse point. “Just like that.”

Fernando slides back down to his knees and before Sergio can say anything, Fernando licks gently at the head of Sergio’s cock, like he’s actually enjoying it, and Sergio’s gotten good head before, but nobody’s ever acted like this, like they _liked_ it. Sergio looks down and he can see Fernando palming himself through his jeans, and he groans.

Then, just as Sergio’s knuckles are turning white from gripping the sink basin so tightly, Fernando surges forward and slides his mouth around the head of Sergio’s cock, covering his teeth and swirling his tongue, and he’s _good_ at this, Sergio realizes. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hang on, but Fernando’s too good, reaching up to slide a hand around the base and letting his tongue tickle the slit, and Sergio’s coming, his knees turning to jelly. Fernando swallows most of it but a little dribbles out of the corner of his mouth, and he looks so debauched that Sergio has to close his eyes again. Fernando’s tongue snakes out and he licks at the little bit of Sergio’s come that he missed, and then he tugs Sergio’s jeans up gently, tucking him back in and buttoning him up.

He stands and leans against the sink and his eyes are heavy with something, and Sergio’s hands are shaking. He leaves before Fernando can say anything else, because Fernando’s said too much already for one night, and Sergio doesn’t even stop to see if Jesus needs a ride, he just steps into the street and hails a cab and goes home.

\--

The next morning, Sergio pops a few painkillers and has a cup of coffee and takes a shower, because showers are good, a return to humanity, and he leaves the door to the bathroom open because he can, because it’s not like when he was living in that hotel room with Fernando on national duty, when he had to be aware of personal space. It’s his house and if he wants to leave the bathroom door open, he will. So he does. His clothes puddle on the floor and he doesn’t look in the mirror, just steps under the spray of the water.

The water is cool but not cold, the Madrid sun too hot already to warrant the hot shower which is what Sergio really wants.

He hears the phone ring, his house phone for once, and he doesn’t bother to get out of the shower to answer it even though he hates the sound. It’s probably just Jesus or Marco anyway, making sure he got home alright, or possibly Iker, checking in after national duty. Making sure the early exit doesn’t kill him too much. And oddly enough, the early exit isn’t even what’s bothering Sergio. Damn.

Sergio’s starting to lather shampoo into his hair by the time the answering machine picks up, and he can hear it because he was so stupidly determined to leave the door open while he showered.

“Hey, Sese?”

It’s Fernando.

“Hey, Sergio, so I have a huge hangover and you probably do too, but, um. Sergio.”

His voice is low and husky and a little hoarse, and Sergio is absolutely transfixed. It’s like Fernando rolls the words around in his mouth before he spits them out, and the roll of his tongue against the roof of his mouth with each ‘r’ sends a little thrill down Sergio’s spine.

“We should do something today, I dunno. Hang out or something.”

Sergio tries to tune out, stop listening, and reaches up to rinse the shampoo out of his hair.

“Oh, and Sergio? Don’t ignore me, please. I called your cell and you didn’t pick up so maybe you’re just sleeping in which case I’m sorry, Sese, but. Sergio. Just don’t ignore me, okay? If you’re mad at me, you can just call me and tell me. I hope you know that, Sergio.”

Fernando hangs up then, and Sergio’s own name echoes in his ears, said in Fernando’s voice, and he realizes that he’s half hard. He slams a fist against the wall of the shower and blinks a few times. “Fuck.”

The phone starts ringing again. Sergio lets it.

“Hey, Sergio?”

Sergio groans, low and long, and his hand drops to his cock, the lather of the shampoo easing the slide.

“Don’t go make plans with Jesus now so you can tell me you’re busy. I know I called first. Bye, Sergio.”

Again, it’s the sound of his own name, the ‘r’ rolling perfectly off of Fernando’s tongue, that stays in his ears and he moans, leans against the shower wall to steady himself, and jacks himself off, hard and fast.

\--

He calls Jesus, who seems to be the only person who actually knows what’s going on. Sergio doesn’t stop to dwell on how weird that is, because back at Sevilla, Jesus wasn’t exactly clueless, but he wasn’t a gossip queen or anything, either. Sergio’s chest feels a little hollow, because of how much he’s missed in his friend’s life, because while he’s been in Madrid making a name for himself, his best friend has grown up. They’ve grown up separately.

“And so I have a problem,” he concludes dramatically, after regaling Jesus with the entire story of what happened in the bathroom. Both bathrooms, at the club and then his own.

“No you don’t,” Jesus tells him, and Sergio can feel his shit-eating grin. If they were having this conversation in person, they’d be having another eyebrow argument. Jesus’s eyebrows are made for those.

“Have you been listening? At all? Please don’t tell me you’re playing ProEvo instead of listening to my tale of lament and sorrow, et cetera,” Sergio wails into the receiver. Jesus chuckles.

“You don’t have a problem. You love him, big deal.”

Well, that’s one way to put it, Sergio grumbles to himself. He would’ve chosen infatuation, or maybe lust, not love, but. _You love him_ , Jesus had said, and it had sounded so simple. Sergio sighs. “You know, I need a little time to get used to this whole you always being right thing,” he says.

“I’ve always been right, you just started realizing it recently,” Jesus counters, but there’s no venom to his voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Sergio replies, and hangs up.

\--

And life goes on. Sergio hangs out with Jesus and goes shopping with Guti and rings Iker once a week to assure the keeper that he’s okay. He’s in love with Fernando but that doesn’t change anything, except that he starts ignoring Fernando’s texts, which start out saying _lets hang out 2nite_ and progress into _bastard call me dammit_. After a month, Sergio goes back to preseason practices and Jesus goes back to Sevilla but they still talk on the phone, more than they did for the whole year before Jesus came out for the summer, and Sergio continues avoiding Fernando, because it just can’t happen.

He would put the effort in to making it work, in a perfect world. But Sergio knows that their world is not perfect, it is the furthest thing from it, and it sucks. He hates it. It’s exhausting, to think each night about what he would’ve done, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, if he’d left Sevilla to come into a world where he isn’t an international footballer. Where people don’t know his name and wear his jersey. Where he is just another guy, and where Fernando’s just another guy, and it shatters Sergio, to think of the alternate reality and know he can never have it.

After a particularly long Friday at training, Sergio collapses in front of his TV and decides that he isn’t going to move until Sunday morning.

Right on cue, the phone rings.

“Unless you’re a blood relative please hang up,” Sergio groans into the receiver. He doesn’t get a reply, so he hangs up, instead.

It rings again. “Seriously, go away,” he says. He’s not sure if he’s speaking intelligible words. It’s very possible that he’s tired enough for his jaw to be malfunctioning.

“I’m coming over,” someone says, and hangs up. Sergio stares at the phone for a second, then puts it down and returns to the TV.

\--

“You’re a mess.”

Sergio blinks and looks up and Fernando’s freckles swim into view.

\--

The next time Sergio wakes up, it’s because of an unfamiliar ringtone -not the flamenco that plays from his cell phone, not the annoying ring of the house phone- playing incessantly loudly, way too close to his head. He forces his head up and looks around. He’s on the couch. The ringing stops and he looks over to see Fernando, flailing around a little, tangled in blankets and lying on the floor next to the coffee table. Huh.

“Yeah, sure, of course I’ll be there,” Fernando says. “I’m sorry, it just- I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be there soon.” He disconnects the call.

“What was that about?” Sergio asks, mostly so that they wouldn’t sit in silence and partly because he’s curious.

“Olalla, we were supposed to go out last night, but I came here and forgot to tell her, and she’s got this lunch thing with her mom this afternoon so now I have to go to that,” Fernando rambles, shrugging.

It’s not funny, really, but Sergio starts to laugh anyway. An honest, deep, from the belly laugh that has him rolling around on the couch a little. A slightly hysterical, I-love-you-and-you-don’t-know-it-but-you-stood-up-your-kind-of-girlfriend-anyway kind of a laugh. Sergio doesn’t even know if Fernando and Olalla are even properly together anymore, so the laugh really isn’t warranted but it tumbles out, like a waterfall.

Fernando just stares at him. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Sergio chokes out, and he knows that Fernando knows he’s lying.

\--

Fernando doesn’t leave for lunch. Sergio’s vaguely aware of him texting Olalla, but he doesn’t push and Fernando doesn’t volunteer anything, so he lets it sit. They go out, walk around Sergio’s neighborhood for a while, and end up at the same outdoor café Sergio had brought Jesus, back in the beginning of the summer. He doesn’t see any photographers this time.

It’s hot out, the way Madrid is hot in August, and they take their time, going to the grocery store and standing in the freezer aisle just for kicks, buying beer and ice cream and the packaged tortas Fernando likes, even though Sergio insists he can make better ones.

It’s weirdly comforting and domestic, carrying grocery bags back home with Fernando, but Sergio would be lying if he said he didn’t like it. And when Fernando’s phone rings, and Sergio peers over and sees Olalla on the display, he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t feel weirdly satisfied when Fernando presses the “ignore caller” button.

“How are you two doing?” He asks.

Fernando flaps his hand around a little. “We’re stuck,” he shrugs. “She wants to get serious and I don’t, so we’re stuck.”

\--

When Fernando and Olalla break up, Sergio doesn’t find out because of Fernando. He finds out because of an email from Jesus. There’s a picture attached, of Sergio and Fernando sitting at the café from a week ago, and underneath it Jesus writes _fer and ollala broke up yesterday according to gossip rags. you wouldn’t have anything to do with it, prince charming?_

Sergio picks up his phone and voluntarily sends the first text message for the first time he can remember. _why prince charming?_

Jesus texts him back almost instantly. _fer’s got blond hair, that makes him cinderella_.

\--

Sergio isn’t exactly sure how he ends in the Calderon watching Atletico play Sevilla. He tells himself it’s because he wants to see his old team, and purposely takes a seat in the away section of the stands, but he can’t help the little bubble of excitement that pops up in his chest whenever Fernando has the ball.

He sees Olalla sitting in the stands opposite him, a few cameras trained on her, and he frowns.

\--

Sergio thinks about hanging around after the match, but Jesus texts him so he calls his friend instead.

“Did you see the email I sent you?” Jesus asks.

“The one from a few weeks ago, yeah,” Sergio replies.

“No, the one from yesterday.”

“Oh.” Sergio pulls up his laptop and opens his email. 23 unread messages. He should probably start checking that more often, he thinks to himself, and then finds the one from Jesus. It’s a picture of Olalla and a copy/pasted headline that reads _Fernando Torres WAG Olalla Dominguez Cheats- Is She With Kun Aguero Now?_.

“Oh,” Sergio says again, quieter this time.

“Oh? You’re an idiot, Serg. Get your ass over to his house, pronto.”

Sergio does as he’s told.

\--

He brings beer, but when Fernando opens the door, it doesn’t look like he needed to. The telltale pink spots, high on Fernando’s cheeks, are rosy and his eyes are bright and sad. Sergio plops himself down on the couch next to Fernando and they work their way through a six pack before Fernando turns the TV on mute and starts talking.

“Did you know?” Is what he asks. Sergio shakes his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t.” Sergio lets him ramble for a while, about how she picked Kun maybe because Kun was scoring more these days, and then “-maybe because I’m not enough for her, because I’m not enough for anybody, dammit-“ and then Sergio catches Fernando’s chin in his hand, turns the striker’s head, and kisses him full on the lips.

“Don’t you ever say that,” he hisses fiercely before he reattaches their lips. Again, it’s not the best kiss he’s ever had- Fernando tastes bitter, like beer and the bile he’s been talking about for what seems like an hour, but Sergio keeps going, threads his fingers through the silk of Fernando’s hair, tugs on the striker until Fernando’s sitting on his thighs but they are just kissing, not as a prelude to sex, but kissing for the sake of kissing, because Sergio feels like he could so easily get lost in the curves of Fernando’s lips.

When they break apart, Fernando’s lips are swollen and red and his eyes are bright and not quite so sad. “I’m drunk,” he whispers, like he’s seven and sharing a secret. Sergio chuckles and runs his hands lightly up and down Fernando’s thighs.

“I know,” he tells Fernando, pressing another soft kiss to the striker’s bee-stung lips. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Sergio tucks Fernando into his overlarge, empty double bed, kisses his freckled forehead, and turns out the lights. “Call me,” he says, and Fernando mumbles something affirmative. Sergio cleans up the living room and drives home, slowly, and can’t fall asleep for hours.

\--

The season kicks off for real, and Sergio is busy with practice and games and all the hype, this year this year this year, and it’s his second year with Madrid so he still isn’t really used to it. He wonders if he ever will be. He hasn’t spoken with Fernando since that night, only exchanged text messages every few days, and Sergio really, really hates his cell phone. He hates the little beep it makes when he has a text, because for every little beep, he’d rather have Fernando actually man up and call him, so they can have an actual conversation. It’s easy to lie via text message, and ever since that night in the club bathroom, Sergio has tried not to lie to Fernando. He’s regressing, though, replying to ever _how r u_ Fernando sends with _fine_. He isn’t fine.

After Real’s league opener, Fernando texts him again.

 _good job_ , it says. Sergio huffs. His phone buzzes again. _come over? im bored_. Sergio flips open his phone and angrily stabs a reply back. _entertain yourself, i have plans._ Fernando’s reply comes a few minutes later. _u dont have plans, stop lying. come over ur more entertaining we’ll have fun_.

He calls Jesus.

“What the fuck, man,” he says.

“Sergio.”

“Yes.”

“Tell him to come to yours. Then fuck him, let him stay overnight, and don’t kick him out in the morning.”

Sergio hangs up.

Then he texts Fernando. _you come here._ Fernando’s reply is lightening quick: _give me ten_.

\--

They don’t fuck. Instead they watch a Premier League game and Fernando falls asleep halfway through it, so Sergio drapes a blanket over him and tries to be as quiet as he can when he does the dishes and takes a shower. In the morning, they eat dry cereal and then Sergio drops Fernando off on the way to practice. It’s weirdly normal, like they do it every day, and it freaks Sergio out a little bit.

“So how’d it go?” Jesus asks when he calls Sergio later.

“Fucker, we didn’t do anything,” Sergio replies, fumbling with the keys to his front door.

“Why not?”

“Look, Jesus,” Sergio says, closing the door behind him as he stumbles into his house. “I don’t mind, okay? That you want us to be together.”

“Of course you don’t. You want to be with him. So go do it.”

“But just- can you just let us get there ourselves?”

\--

Fernando calls Sergio right when Sergio is about to call Fernando. He takes a minute to freak out about the fact that they’ve evidentially developed some weird sort of telepathy before answering. “Hey, guess what I’m watching?”

They say it at the same time, and this time Sergio takes a minute to laugh like a little kid. Then he coughs. “You first.”

“Your new Nike commercial,” Fernando says. “Now you.”

“ _Your_ new Nike commercial,” Sergio replies, and. Wow. Weird telepathy it is.

“The one with that tennis player?”

Sergio laughs again. “Yeah. She’s not bad looking.”

“She’s got a boyfriend.”

“You asked?”

“Maybe.”

“Whatever, you look better than her anyway,” Sergio says. He doesn’t blurt it out. It’s deliberate. He knows what he’s doing. “Although your hair looks like you need to fix up the roots.”

“Well excuse me for not taking hair advice from you, Mr I Have Twelve Brands of Gel and Don’t Know the Difference Between Them,” Fernando snorts. And then- “Hey, wait, are you hitting on me?”

Sergio’s laugh bubbles up, slow and deep from his chest. “Yep. That gonna be a problem?”

“I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

\--

Fernando does come over in ten minutes, and Sergio does not jump him at the door the way the voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Jesus is telling him to. Instead they eat cereal and watch one of Fernando’s old movies on the TV in Sergio’s bedroom, and Sergio is vaguely aware of Fernando pressing a kiss to his forehead before he falls asleep.

It’s like a proper date, Sergio thinks, minus the actually going out part. It’s like a date night in, the way he used to have with his old girlfriends, the ones he’d been with for a while, after the appeal of getting dolled up and actually leaving the house wore off.

It’s nice.

\--

Sergio wakes up to the sound of running water, and it takes him a minute to put two and two together and realize that Fernando is in the shower. In his shower. Sergio’s brain gets with the program. Fernando is in his shower, where he jacked off to the sound of Fernando saying his name. Fernando is naked in his shower.

Sergio glances down and sees his boxers tented because of his morning wood, and the thought of Fernando in his shower is not helping matters. He groans.

“You okay? Sergio?”

Sergio flops over and regrets it instantly, because there’s no way Fernando, who’s got a towel clinging to his hips and whose wet hair is dripping water onto his freckled shoulders and who looks way too good for nine in the morning, can miss his hard on.

“Looks like you’re more than okay,” Fernando observes, and Sergio hates that he loves the smirk dancing around the striker’s lips.

“Don’t- Just don’t fuck with me, Fer,” Sergio spits out. His anger is irrational. “I can’t take that. Okay?”

“Who says I’m just fucking with you?”

“You never called, that night after-“

Fernando moves to sit on the bed and the dip in the mattress startles Sergio into silence. That, and the fact that the towel’s parted over Fernando’s thigh and he’s even got freckles there, and wow, that’s really distracting. “Olalla cheated on me. I had some things to sort through.”

“Oh,” Sergio says softly, and then Fernando’s hands are moving the towel away, and Sergio can’t look anywhere else.

“I don’t want to just fuck around with you,” Fernando says. “Or, well. I do. I want to fuck you. But I also want to stick around after and go out to breakfast and have a life with you, you know?”

It’s like Sergio’s alternate universe, that he’s been imagining on and off for the better part of three months now, where he and Fernando aren’t being photographed all the time, where the hopes of a country don’t rest on them. Where they’re just two guys.

And he decides- maybe it’s time for the alternate universe to become his universe. Now.

So he leans forward and takes Fernando’s lower lip between his own and sucks on it gently, until Fernando surges up and they’re kissing for real. He trails his hands over Fernando’s shoulders, mapping out the freckles, and moves until he’s straddling the older man. Fernando’s hands come to rest at his hips, fingers slipping under the waistband of his boxers, and the twitch of fabric over his dick reminds him that he’s been hard for way too long.

Fernando rolls them over, pushing Sergio’s boxers off as they go, and pushes Sergio’s shoulders down, spreading him out on the double bed. The sunlight is streaming in through the open window and Sergio can feel Fernando’s eyes on him, drinking in the caramel skin and his hair fanned out around his head, so he does the same to Fernando, transfixed by the way the sun kisses his pale skin, makes it glow golden, and makes his hair shine bright, ethereal. He could stare at Fernando like this forever.

But Fernando has other plans, and Sergio doesn’t exactly object when Fernando swoops down and starts kissing him again, the towel now balled up on the floor. Sergio can feel Fernando’s dick, sliding against his hip, and it makes him dizzy.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,” Sergio murmurs as Fernando’s hand drops to circle a finger around his entrance. Sergio squirms a little. He isn’t sure why that particular verse popped into his head but he doesn’t question it.

“Song of Songs?” Fernando asks as he presses the tip of his finger in. Sergio bucks against the intrusion.

“You love it,” he gasps out, and he doesn’t know where Fernando found lube, but he’s glad, because two more fingers are prodding at him, slick and cool, and he rocks back onto Fernando’s hand.

“Only from you,” Fernando replies, leaning over and kissing Sergio’s hipbone, twisting his fingers in and out.

Fernando pulls back to roll on a condom, and Sergio isn’t sure where he found that, either, and then it crosses his mind that Fernando came over with this in mind, he probably came prepared. It makes Sergio a little bit more dizzy, to think that Fernando came over last night with the intent, the desire, to have sex with him. He feels Fernando’s cock nudging at his entrance and he opens his eyes, sees Fernando looming above him, and he nods. Fernando pushes forward, the head of him slipping in, and Sergio wiggles a little, the feeling slightly uncomfortable but good, too.

Fernando surges forward to kiss Sergio, dragging his teeth along Sergio’s jawbone before finally finding his lips, and his cock slips the rest of the way in. Sergio moans low before his mouth is occupied by Fernando’s tongue, and he rolls his hips experimentally. Fernando pulls out and slams back in, hard, and Sergio arches against him, gasping for air. “Good?” Fernando asks, and Sergio nods hard.

They set up a rhythm, and Sergio rocks back to meet Fernando’s thrusts, and it’s good, Sergio hasn’t done this in a while, but it’s good, and Fernando’s brushing his prostate on every other thrust, and Sergio knows this isn’t going to last as long as he wants it to.

“Sergio,” Fernando grunts out. Sergio’s dick twitches. “Sergio, we should’ve done this a long time ago. Over the summer. That night you kissed me. Long long time ago.”

Neither of them last long after that.

\--

Sergio texts Jesus later, who replies alarmingly quickly. _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ , his message reads, and Sergio laughs before he turns off his phone.

\--

And life goes on. Sergio goes to practice, plays matches on Sundays, calls Iker midweek to make sure the keeper’s eating regularly and not freaking out, still talks to Jesus a lot. The only difference is that now, a lot of Fernando’s stuff has been making its way over to Sergio’s house, and there are two toothbrushes in the mug on the sink, and Sergio doesn’t have to jack himself off in the shower, because Fernando’s there to do it for him.

\--

“What the hell?”

They’re grocery shopping again. Sergio isn’t bothered by the alarming domestic implications that come with grocery shopping on a weekly basis with Fernando. He kind of likes it. Sergio looks into the cart with dismay at the armful of baking goods Fernando’s just dropped.

“Make rosquitos tonight?”

“Fine,” Sergio grumbles.

\--

He does make rosquitos that night. And the next night he makes tortas and the next night Fernando orders Thai take away and they watch _Casablanca_ , and when Jesus calls, Sergio puts him on speakerphone and they all talk, and laugh, and things are so normal Sergio feels like he could burst with it.

He’s still a little sad that things can’t be like this all the time, that he can’t release it to the gossip rags that he’s dating Fernando Torres, that he’s in love with Fernando Torres, that Fernando Torres keeps an extra set of clothes or two or three at his house. But when Fernando snuggles into his chest each night and wakes him up by mouthing at his collarbones and talks casually about selling his apartment and just staying here-

Sergio doesn’t need to be completely public. Iker knows. Jesus knows. His mother knows. He’s pretty sure Olalla knows, which makes him feel perversely, if stupidly, vindicated. Kissing Fernando’s cheekbone before he leaves, Sergio decides he likes this better than his alternate universe.

This is real, for one.

And he’s pretty sure it’s going to last.  



End file.
